Dan Lanning Reacts to Oregon's 34-14 Win Over Northwestern: "Our standard can't change"

The No. 4 Oregon Ducks will leave Evanston with a Week 3 victory after defeating the Northwestern Wildcats 34-14 on Saturday.

Head coach Dan Lanning met with reporters following the game to give his thoughts on what he saw from his squad.

Below are some of his top quotes

Opening statement: “Thought we lacked a little killer Instinct there at the end and our standard can’t change. I want to give a lot of credit to Northwestern. I thought they came out here with a good plan. They executed well, on their side of the ball and outside of some turnovers, I think they were right in this game. They had a good plan for us. They executed well, I thought we came with some answers and were able to create some things there, especially early in the second half. Create some of our run game that we needed to have in this game. I thought our quarterback made great decisions, but ultimately those takeaways and being able to score early and played some good defense early, more advantageous defense than great defense, allowed us to come away with the win.”

On Oregon handling adversity

Lanning: “Good and bad. There’s gonna be some film for us to be able to go back and really attack. And again, I think they had some good answers that we have to have a good plan for moving forward. I thought the energy on the sideline was really good, just disappointed with the last couple drives on both sides of the ball. We kind of charted that throughout. We knew this was gonna be a limited possession game with the way that they play football. They did a really good job of eating the clock. We gotta take advantage of every series on both sides of the ball. And at times we did that. At times we didn’t. Ultimately, the demeanor on the sideline was great. The playing for each other was great. Guys were focused and attentive, but we just didn’t finish the way that I want to finish.”

On what he saw from Dante Moore‘s two-minute drive to end first half, performance at large

Lanning: “Poise. I thought he played with poise all day, even the ball that was picked off. I think he’s making the right decision. We just throw in that direction. The wind was a real issue. I think you saw also on kickoff return for them, they had a long kickoff return we knew that ball was going to come out. We didn’t do a good job covering there, but you gotta be able make critical plays like that. We had too many second and longs today, too many third and longs that we had to convert. And when you go 7/11 on third down is impressive with some of the down and distances that we had and some of the decisions that we had to push to go get. What we’d love to do is avoid third down altogether, and that means we gotta be more efficient on first and second.”

On the start for Oregon defense

Lanning: “I thought they had some sustained drives. We had to put the fire out. They created some success. They converted some short-yardage plays, and every one of those, I think they shot themselves in the foot a little bit more than we went and created success. But we were advantageous. We had an opportunity to make plays on the ball. Whether it’s Bryce or Jerry, those guys have proven to be ball production guys, and that’s definitely what we’re looking for. But ultimately, I think we can be better before we get to that point.”

On no penalties

Lanning: “More than anything, we get what you emphasize. And we emphasized that a lot. No. DBOs. We don’t beat ourselves and we don’t beat ourselves, you got a chance to have success. And that was a big emphasis this week. It showed up. We operated clean. We have to continue to do that to help ourselves out.”

On Malik Benson establishing himself

Lanning: “We got a lot of guys that can make plays on offense, and Malik has certainly done that. I could start naming a bunch of names of guys that made big-time plays and the ball getting delivered to people as well. Good quarterback play helps all those things, but Malik’s been great for us.”

On this past week’s events: Charlie Kirk, mental health, violence

Lanning: “I think the U.S. could learn a lot from our locker room. I think the people in this world could learn a lot from our locker room. You walk in that locker room, you got guys in different races, guys of different backgrounds, different religions, and you got a team that loves each other. Tons of differences: where they come from, what they deal with, and ultimately, you have team that loves each other. and I think we’re missing some of that in our country.

“I recently found out Charlie Kirk was a Oregon fan. I didn’t know that. I hurt for his wife, Erika and their kids. That sort of evil should never exist in our country. And that’s what it is, evil. I remember having explained that to my family. I remember sitting down my kids and explaining what happened and they’re talking about people talking about it at school. And it’s just sad. But it’s just as sad, every day it seems like we deal with some sort of violence that’s going on our country. Whether it’s school kids in Colorado or kids in Minnesota at churches. I mean, life matters. And I think we’ve lost sight of that. But I wish the world could learn a little bit of something from our locker room, because we got a bunch of people with differences, and what you got in there is a bunch of people love there.

“There’s some people that’ll be disappointed about how much I said, about how this. There’ll be some people that are disappointed I didn’t say enough. And I really don’t care. What I do care about is if you disagree with me, if you hate me, if you don’t like like me, just know this, I love you. I absolutely love you. And life matters, and that’s no way that Charlie should experience, that his family should experience, that there’s no way that that evil should exist in this world. And we have to continue to identify and point it out and make sure that it’s absolutely evil.

“There’s no reason in the world that our our kids, that we should be worried about sending our kids to school. It’s our most valuable commodity in the world. They should be protected. And the reality is, there’s just not a lot of common sense on both sides. And common sense says, oh, it’s mental health, right? Common Sense says oh, it’s guns. You know what? It’s both. Let’s have some common sense.

Our kids should be the most protected thing in the world, right? They should have armed guards at every school, because there’s sick people. There’s sick people in this world, right? And on top of that, sick people need help, and it should be really hard for a sick person to have a gun. Should be really hard, right? And if people can’t see that from both sides, how disappointing is that? But I just know, when you see moments like that that exist right now in our country, like, I just think about my kids, and I hope—I remember I saw that video it’s disgusting. And I just hope, I’m like, man I hope my kids don’t see that video. I hope Charlie’s kids never see that video. Like, disgusting, right? And it, we glorify it. We praise it.

“You know, people are internet warriors, and those are sick people, and at some point we need to go look at sports, because what our football team has, is it has people on both sides of the fence, right? And there’s fans that love our team, that have a lot of different opinions. And the truth is, there’s a lot of things Charlie said that I did not, not agree with it all. There’s a lot of things he said that I did agree with. But what’s disappointing is I could respect those differences and yet somebody else couldn’t, and they thought that they deserved to be God in that moment. And they didn’t right, and nobody should have to experience that. So yeah, I got a lot of disappointment. We had a Bible study with our team. We talked about it with our team. And I think our team feels the same way, regardless of views. I don’t think they feel anybody ever deserves to experience what some people in our country are experiencing right now, and it’s super disappointing